One of the oldest forms of art is wood carving. From totem poles in the Pacific Northwest of North America to Scandanavian flat-pane style murals, cultures throughout the ages have shown off their creativity using this art form. This artform takes on many shapes, such as murals, sculptures, decorations, walking sticks, and bowls.

In books, movies, and tv shows, fathers can be seen sitting on porches, whittling away in their rocking chairs. Teenage boys partake in wood taking classes.

Do you know someone who carves? Have some carvings you'd like to share with us? Have any fun facts about wood carvings? Please feel free to discuss anything related to word carving here.

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4th year Witch

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I don't know someone personally who does wood carvings. But there's a wood carver in a nearby village I often drive through. His garden is full of sculpures of birds. This village is close to a big forest I like to go for longer walks. There's a car parking spot and there stands a big sculpture of an owl made from wood. I think that this sculpture is made by the same person from the village.

I used to know someone who carved the most beautiful wooden utensils. I have a number of them packed away. my great-great grandfather also used to carve pipes back when he was in Germany. He would make them out of clay, carve designs and then fire them.

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Graduated Witch

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I've never personally met someone who does wood carving. The closest I've done was carving into rubber for print making during middle school art and that's mostly two dimensional compared to wood carving. I have seen wood carving done with a chainsaw though. At least a bit. It was at the Ice Cream Festival at a nearby ice cream mill/factory/place. It was fascinating on all accounts. I don't know how they can get such detail with a tool that feels anything but detail oriented.

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Graduated Witch

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Oh! They have a lot of vendor booths and such. Like a street fair of sorts but it's locates at the mill and in the field across from it so it's not on a street. And then the carving thing was entertainment but they were also selling their carvings.

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5th year Witch

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I saw many beautiful wood carvings in Indonesia - mainly in Bali and also in Java. There is a wide variety of trees and wood available including teak and camphor. A lot of wood carvings are produced for the tourist market, but wood carvings are also an important part of house design and decoration, both interior and exterior. Many excellent woodcarvings can be seen in the local museums in Denpasar and Ubud in Bali.

That's awesome Sara! I would love to have a little wood carved ice cream cone to remind me to eat more ice cream.

I do have a little wood carved turtle from the Phillipines that I'll have to track down and show off. It's really smooth for wood, and handmade which is my favorite type of souvenir. My favorite wood carvings I've seen however are the totem poles in the PNW. They're massive and so detailed.

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4th year Witch

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I saw a TV show once where they did an entertainment part. They invited someone who could carve wood with a chainsaw. That was impressive.

The closed I've done to woodcarving was carving soap stone. When I was a kid I was part of an art workshop and our teacher was great. She was really invested in us and took us to art galleries, made an exhibition with our art pieces too once. And one day she asked if we were interested in carving soap stone. I carved a little bird sitting on a stone out of it and added sea shells.

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3rd year Witch

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I tried to carve of a few weeks when I was younger. When my great-grandfather died it inspired me to try to carve like he did. His room was full of carved animals he had made over about an 80 year span. He had a knack for different wood types. He could tell by the wood what animal it would have to be.

When i pieces in TN they had a ton of wood carvers (chainsaw) it was fascinating to watch.

I don't carve wood but I have seen it in many shops. I went to see the Redwoods at the Muir Woods and there was a little shop. It had different carvings of objects. I bought a train with a caboose. The shop had different size boxes, wild life figurines and key chains. It was truly amazing. However the prices were expensive!

I don't carve either. However, up north, there is someone who carves animals out of tree trunks. It was absolutely amazing! They are huge! He must do it with a chainsaw, which to me... is even more impressive than with a knife.

I just looked and I can't find a picture *pouts* but he makes these amazing bears!

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Graduated Witch

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Quote: CaptainBreelandThat's awesome Sara! I would love to have a little wood carved ice cream cone to remind me to eat more ice cream.

I do have a little wood carved turtle from the Phillipines that I'll have to track down and show off. It's really smooth for wood, and handmade which is my favorite type of souvenir. My favorite wood carvings I've seen however are the totem poles in the PNW. They're massive and so detailed.

Would love to see this turtle so I hope you can find it to share
It's absolutely mind-blowing to me to think about how in the past this was the only way to get some things. Mass production and plastic just wasn't a thing. The time and care that had to be put into every piece from necessities like spoons and the like to the fun toys and figurines.

I work as an assistant in an elementary school makerspace and this year we had one of the grades design and make spoons. We didn't really use typical carving tools since it's not a fully equipped woodshop though. After the kids designed their spoons, we assisted them on a scroll saw to roughly cut them out, then the teacher used a knife to carve the handles to make them more rounded and fix any big mistakes. Once they were finished, the kids sanded them and finished them with a coat of olive oil. The teacher let me have my own piece of wood so I could make one too. It came out pretty well, so I gave it to my mom as a Christmas present and she uses it to cook sometimes!

That's as close as I've ever gotten to wood carving. I would love to try it out with actual carving tools sometime.

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5th year Witch

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I have owned some beautiful carved wooden pieces that might be classed more as contemporary art than craft. I also owned some hand-carved Balinese masks that were inspired by the bidadari or celestial nymphs of Indra's heaven. I have some wayang golek which are Javanese puppets. Their heads and arms are carved from wood. I also bought quite a few beautiful carved boxes and pieces of furniture in Indonesia where woodcarving thrives until today.

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Oh! Sampi314 that reminds me of the wooden cars we made in industrial tech in middle school. It was all machine things and super simple. But we sanded by hand. They were co2 car thingys that we "raced" mine did poorly as I didn't do a whole lot to the block lol. It wasn't as smooth as it could have been and I didn't really get a super aerodynamic shape lol.

Quote: SaraOh! Sampi314 that reminds me of the wooden cars we made in industrial tech in middle school. It was all machine things and super simple. But we sanded by hand. They were co2 car thingys that we "raced" mine did poorly as I didn't do a whole lot to the block lol. It wasn't as smooth as it could have been and I didn't really get a super aerodynamic shape lol.

That sounds really cool! It's pretty similar to the kinds of things we do. We talk a lot about simple machines and do fun little projects like building cars and catapults. And of course we always have races and competitions at the end to see whose car can go furthest or which catapult can fling things the most accurately lol.

My dad was a woodcarver. He made the dining room chairs that we had, which had intricate detail of carving on their backing. I'm sorry, no pictures...the chairs are long gone due to my fat ex-husband sitting on them and breaking every single seat.

My brother was a whittler, and I learned a bit myself. I would find pieces of wood in the woods outside our home in south Texas and bring them home to strip the bark and start carving. One time, I found a piece that was already carved though!

I was walking through the woods when I came across a dead sapling sticking out of the ground. I thought it'd make a nice walking stick, so I tested how firm it was in the ground...it wasn't. So I yanked it out, and my arms, don't you know, were covered in the little carvers themselves. The entire sapling had been carved on the inside by carpenter ants! When I looked at the end of the sapling, I could see tunnels upon tunnels. I knew then that I couldn't use it as a walking stick...too flimsy because of all the tunnels, but I decided to keep it for awhile to show to people and say, "Look, even ants can carve wood. You can too!"